Today is Trans Day of Remembrance
This is an image of Rita Hester, a Black Trans woman who was murdered in 1998, and whose death began the tradition of Trans Day of Remembrance.
TDoR is a kind of shadow sibling to March’s Trans Day of Visibility. In March, we celebrate where we are seen, where we are alive and in joy. Even then we grapple with the complexity of being visible in a world that would prefer we not exist. But if possible, we focus on the beauty of our existence in the world.
Trans Day of Remembrance is a place for our grief. It is a place to hold all of the loss we face as trans people in the world. We lose our families and friends, our jobs, our health, our communities. And in some cases, we lose our lives.
This day began to recognize the violent murder of Rita Hester, a Black Trans woman from Massachusetts who was killed in 1998.
Since 2013, the Human Rights Campaign has performed annual tallies of Trans people who have died due to transphobic violence. This is hard work to track. They are often only able to access reliable data from some states in the US, and even that data is not comprehensive. There are a couple of things that make this challenging. First, some police reports only include a person’s legal name and the media may not record their death by their chosen name. Second, it may not be clear that their death was related to their gender identity. And thirdly, due to intersectional experiences of homelessness or transience, the victims may not be properly identified at all. There are other complexities as well, but this is why the HRC always cautions that the numbers they provide each year are likely much lower than what is actually happening.
Even these much lower reported numbers are shockingly high, and represent the other ways intersectional forms of oppression act on bodies. This year, 77% of the victims were people of colour, with 53% being Black women.
As trans people become culture war scapegoats across the world, it is increasingly important to stay vigilant, to push back against violent anti-trans rhetoric, and to hold your trans friends and community members close. Things are not getting better for us out there. We need all hands on deck.
Allow the grief of this day its time. Light a candle, attend a vigil. Weep with your friends and give time to name those we have lost.
And tomorrow, keep fighting for the living.
Find the full HRC report here.
Here are the names they were able to provide thanks to their monitoring this year. Hold them in your heart today.
Quanesha “Cocoa” Shantel
Santonio “San” Coleman
Honee Daniels
Kassim Omar
Redd aka Barbie
Vanity Williams
Tai’Vion Lathan
Dylan Gurley
Monique Brooks
Kenji Spurgeon
Shannon Boswell
Pauly Likens
Liara Tsai
Jazlynn Johnson
Yella (Robert) Clark Jr.
Michelle Henry
Brandon “Tayy Dior” Thomas
Reyna Hernandez
Kita Bee
Starr Brown
Sasha Williams
Andrea Doria Dos Passos
River Neveah Goddard
Tee “Lagend Billions” Arnold
Africa Parillia “Emma” Garcia
Merazes Medina
Alex Taylor Franco
Diamond Brigman
Righteous TK “Chevy” Hill
Kitty Monroe
